


I Am The Swarm

by atomwalker



Category: Alien Series
Genre: Body Horror, Egg Laying, Facehugger, Human Experimentation, I figure the non-con tag applies to facehuggers, Mutation, Unethical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-04-20 22:22:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14270769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atomwalker/pseuds/atomwalker
Summary: Daniels is at the mercy of her captor. David's plans for her are beyond her worst nightmares, and preserving her humanity may be even harder than surviving.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have every intention of making this a short series; those tags aren't for nothing!

It had been 1357 days. She counted.

After the three years with no response to her distress beacon, Daniels admitted to herself that no one was coming for her. But somehow, she wasn't as bothered by that as she would have been before all this. Looking to the microphone, Daniels saw her reflection on the monitor, and felt a shiver run down her spine. She never got over it; not really. This was merely a voice recording, but the captain was sometimes tempted to preserve her face digitally, for posterity.

"My name is Daniels Branson. Final report of the USCSS Covenant, Chief Terraformist reporting. Crew members Captain Jacob Branson, Christopher Oram, Magaret Farris, Daniel Lope, Thomas Hallett, Private Ankor, Private Ledward, Sarah Rosenthal, Karine Oram, Navigator Ricks, and Comm-Technician Upworth, are dead. We completed our mission to discover an habitable world, and have nearly completed building the first habitation structures."

Tennessee's voice distracted her momentarily, and a dark, low silhouette appeared in the doorway.

"Just a second, alright?" She asked, turning back to the microphone.

"This is Chief Terraformist Daniels Branson, signing off."  
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  


When David first woke her from the pod, she struggled. She shrieked and wailed, clawing at his synthetic skin, snapping at his throat; anything to inhibit or incapacitate him. But he was stronger, and had all the patience of someone built to live forever.  


Daniels had a fairly strong idea of what he intended to do; while that cold, predatory smile betrayed hostility immediately, she'd seen the embryos in the drawer, and the hungry gaze he cast at the other cryopods betrayed his intentions easily. Like a child set loose in a candy store, David had everything he could have ever asked for. What Daniels had not counted on, however, was the android's plans for her.  


Most of Daniel's time was spent strapped to an table in the medical bay. David came by every few hours to check on her; the synthetic took her temperature, fed her, stared at her, and asked her if she needed to use the bathroom. The first few times, Daniels spat in his face and howled promises of death and worse. After a while, David's visits were less frequent; sometimes only twice a day. The smell of urine was beginning to make Daniels feel sick.  


After a week of this, David arrived with a cart full of equipment. Setting it beside the table, he paused as he ran his hand over a steel case.  


"Do you know why you're here?" He asked.  


"Go to hell," Daniels replied. At this, David broke out a rare smile.  


"Defiant still; you remind me of her," He murmured. The reference to Elizabeth Shaw seemed to quiet Daniels, as she began to understand David's intentions more clearly. "She too, refused to see the bigger picture."  


Suddenly, the case on the cart rattled, causing Daniels to yelp in surprise. David, amused by this, put a finger to his mouth.  


"Shh," He hushed, "You'll frighten it."  


Reaching down to open the case, David retrieved what was likely the most horrifying thing Daniels had ever laid eyes on; no small feat considering the things she'd seen during her time away from the Covenant. Eight skeletal legs flailed wildly in the air, while a long, segmented tail wrapped itself around David's arm.  


"Exquisite, is it not?" David asked. "No ordinary specimen, either," He explained, leaning closer to Daniels, closer than she would have ever wanted him to be, before whispering, "Just for you, darling."  


Daniels had a million angry, vicious words to spit in David's face, but none of them seemed to convey the sheer ferocity that defined her hatred in that exact moment. She felt an overwhelming plethora of emotions as David regarded the sickly, twisted thing in his arms; fear, rage, but as David's gaze turned back to her with that predatory smile, Daniels realized what she truly felt:  


Helplessness.  


Hundreds of billions of miles from home, and easily hundreds of millions of miles from anywhere habitable, Daniels realized she was at the mercy of her captor. Time seemed to stop as she looked up and realized David wasn't holding the creature anymore:  


It was on her chest.  


"Oh, Christ," She whispered, all rage leaving her voice in place of terror. "David, please-"  
Before she could finish, it was on her. Skeletal legs propelled it onto her face, gripping her head as its tail coiled around her neck and tightened, pushing the air from her throat. Unable to see anything but off-white flesh, Daniels screamed, raging against her bonds as she realized opening her mouth was a mistake. Something wet and warm shot into her mouth; a thick, muscled appendage that forced its way past her lips and down her throat. The sheer terror gave Daniels the boost of adrenaline she needed to break an arm loose, which took hold of the creature and pulled with all her strength. David was screaming in the distance, and she felt hands grab hold of her and try to wrench her arm free. Easily doing so, Daniels felt helpless against as David's synthetic strength forced her arm down and re-tied her.  


Hope, in that moment, seemed to leave her. The creature began to convulse, as if it were going to regurgitate. Daniels moaned in agony, anticipating a spray of acid like that of the alien creature she vanquished twice before. Instead, she felt something make its way down the appendage that sat in her throat. It moved in slow, lazy pulses, like an egg before it-  


'No. Please, God, don't let this be happening.'  


The screaming was muffled, even more so from the creature that lay perched on Daniels' face. David, standing silent vigil, watched the process as a feeling of unrepentant pleasure came over him. Stepping closer, he observed a bulge in the facehugger's appendage as the package made its way into Daniel's mouth and past her throat.  


"Beautiful," He murmured. Daniels must have heard him, for the muffled noises intensified. "You're going to be beautiful."  


Daniels felt the bulge leave the appendage and slip into her body proper. As it did, a burning sensation began to accumulate in her chest. Unable to hold back the feeling of lightheadedness, Daniels realized she was going to lose consciousness; on the inside, she prayed she'd never regain it.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  


When she woke, Daniels realized she could see the ceiling. Putting her hands to her face, she noted that she'd been untied during her time unconscious. One of the first things she realized, to her utter despair, was how inescapable the reality was that she was awake. Nothing about what she remembered could be mistaken for a nightmare, because of how utterly awake she was for the duration of it. Slowly slipping from the table, Daniels noted her dizziness and shook her head, placing a hand to her chest as she came to grips with the tight sensation she felt there.

"David?" Calling out for her captor seemed counter-productive, Daniels knew. But she also knew that her situation was simply too good to be true. While she was not "free" in the sense that David still controlled the Covenant, Daniels was, momentarily, loosed from her bonds and thusly given some degree of freedom. Her immediate conclusion, naturally, was that this was a ploy on David's part; some way to lure her like a wounded animal into a sense of temporary safety.

With no reply from the open door, Daniels' gaze flicked around the room, checking to ensure the absence of the creature that had taken hold of her head. The room was still; the sterile light seemed brighter than before, and Daniels realized she was squinting as she approached the door, her muscles arguing the motion. Taking hold of the doorframe, she felt a sudden wave of dizziness come over her as she peeked out into the empty hall. As Daniels felt her limbs failing her, the overthrown captain of the Covenant found herself staring down the grated floor while footsteps began to echo through her ears.

"Awake, I see," David began, growing closer as Daniels fought back the urge to throw up. "And already feeling the effects of my masterwork."

"Eat shit," Daniels hissed. It took everything she had not to throw up the contents of the MRE David had fed her last. "What have you done to me?"

"For you, I've saved the greatest of my works," The synthetic replied, crouching to cup Daniels' jaw. As she tore herself away, David's expression darkened. "You will be my magnum opus. My masterpiece." He leaned closer, placing a hand on her back as the pain began to set in and the screaming started.

Daniels had never felt such excruciating pain in her entire life. The entire hallway spun as her muscles failed her completely, and she hit the floor with a thud that barely registered amidst the shrieking, white-hout agony that gripped her bones and pulled. Unable to even open her eyes amidst the sensation of her entire body tearing itself apart, the captain felt David take her beneath her arms and begin moving her. Convulsing and kicking out at the pain, Daniels could only howl and struggle at the physical torment she felt ripping her body apart. What felt like hours later, David released her onto another cold floor.

The back of Daniel's mind registered the ceiling of the cargo bay, now empty and dimly lit. The rest of her brain, however, was occupied; pursuing a vain attempt to shut out the visceral agony that threatened to pull Daniels from consciousness. Clawing against the floor, Daniels found no respite, no mental corner of her head that she could hide in to escape this. Somehow, she knew David was enjoying this; the synthetic that wore Walter's face seemed to revel in his work, and a delusional splinter of Daniels' mind wanted him to come to her rescue, if only to carry her away from the pain she felt.

Pressing her hands to the floor, Daniels nearly slipped back onto the cold steel as she did not recognize the limbs propping her up. Her skin was changing; the tone to a sickly gray, as the hairs began to fall from their pores.

"D-David, please-" Daniels' plea was interrupted by another lash of pain to her back, as she felt pressure building up in her spine. "I can't take this any mo-"

The unfiltered sound of human agony that suddenly filled the cargo bay would have moved any human being to assist the broken creature it came from. David, however, did not fit the description. As Daniels' silhouette twisted and changed before his very eyes, the android could only feel a sense of pride in his chest. His great work was blooming. Her blood mixed with the thick black fluid that mingled in her veins, as the two pooled on the floor.

Daniels realized she couldn't feel anything anymore. Her body felt different; her hands were not her own, and she felt bones in her body that didn't belong there. Something clanged on the bloody metal, but she felt it. She wanted to die. Somewhere, David's voice reached her, and it only reinforced how badly she wanted this to be a horrible dream.

"You will be my Queen."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may be the most unpleasant piece of writing I've ever done. I think I'm a little too infatuated with this universe.


	2. Clutch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daniels comes to terms with a few changes; David's seed bears fruit.

When Daniels awoke, she felt wrong.

She couldn't place it at first, but she realized what put her off the moment she tried to move. Her tail curled around over her leg as she struggled to get up. Wait-

'Tail?'

Whipping around as she startled, Daniels briefly saw a bony tail whip out of view as her body rotated, her new appendage corresponding to commands her brain didn't yet know how to give. With a loud clang, the tail knocked boxes and bins loose from the shelves, forcing Daniels to acknowledge her surroundings.

She was still in the cargo bay, but at some point David had moved her while she was unconscious. An overload of information bombarded Daniels, and she found herself closing her eyes again just to focus. Her brain was still registering body parts that weren't there before, her nervous system performing an involuntary diagnostic as it assessed new arrivals to a system not accustomed to receiving add-ons.

A groan boiled up from her chest, as Daniels slowly came to grips with the burning ache in every bone in her body. As the sound left her mouth, however, the captain realized that the low clicking noise that accompanied her exhausted moan did not belong. Panic began to set in, as Daniels slowly opened her eyes to lay them upon the tail that slowly snaked and twitched on the metal floor, black skeletal joints terminating in a cruel, blade-like length of bone. Scrambling to her feet, Daniels wanted to scream all over again as the tail followed her; the reality that it was attached to her seemed tenuous until that moment. Scrambling away as if to escape the horrible, inescapable nature of the situation, Daniels found herself clawing at the sealed door to the hallway. The second her hands hit the cold metal, the scream she had been suppressing found its freedom.

Her skin looked... Wrong. Like a poor facade, covering something beneath. Her fingers no longer terminating in fingernails; her skin eventually gives way to black, oily claws that refused to be contained by the thin veneer of human skin. This seemed to be the recurring theme down the length of her arm; her skin served as a weak cage for something wrong underneath. Running her eyes up and down her limbs in fascinated horror, she took note of every point where her bones seemed to force themselves through her skin, as if what David had done to her had its own plans for her body. The sheer thought of David brought Daniels to face to the door again, raging against the steel as she howled his name. After long, winding minutes spent clawing the paint from the door, Daniels felt compelled to force her fingers into the seal, as a last-ditch effort to open a door whose keypad was unresponsive to her voice and hands.

As her newly-minted limbs scratched and tore at the unrelenting metal, Daniels felt the edge of her vision darkening as her focus became singular. At some point, she realized, her fingers had forced themselves into the door, dark claws worming into an angry perch in the cold metal. As she started to pull her hands away from each other, Daniels released a piercing howl of exertion, an inhuman sound that didn't even register to her as foreign. All that mattered was getting to David. As the door gave way to her newfound, inhuman strength, hope fluttered in her chest as the locking mechanisms strained against her. Finally, as if surrendering, the bulkhead gave, and the final push gave Daniels freedom from the cargo bay. 

Her first steps into the hall were slow; tentative, as the captain knew not what she'd find waiting for her beyond her temporary prison. Part of Daniels expected David to be waiting for her, that repulsive smile on his synthetic face. However, to her relief, all that greeted her were the lights of the corridor. As she began to settle into a slow, cautious walk, Daniels took note of the unusual sound her feet were making. A quick look down confirmed her fears; whatever that awful creature had done to her, it had affected her whole body. Black digits protruded from her pale feet, the skin ripped and torn at the base of each toe like a worn fabric. Suddenly feeling sick all over again, Daniels needed to find a bathroom.

Almost entirely forgetting David was likely roaming the halls, Daniels quickly slipped into the captain's quarters. Formerly Oram's, she supposed they now belonged to her; Daniels refused to acknowledge David as any kind of owner as it related to the Covenant's sovereignty. Stumbling into the bathroom, Daniels looked over her shoulder again, with anxiety, to realize that she was beginning to get the hang of this horrible tail. Focusing on the mirror, however, Daniels was unable to suppress the scream; a more than appropriate reaction to her appearance.

Her eyes had changed; a thin, sickly film clouded her view of the world. The veins beneath her skin were plain to see, each filled with a some of black fluid that made every vessel visible to the naked eye. Her head-

'Oh, god... How did I not notice that?'

Some kind of growth had developed at the back of her skull; the thought was sickening, but it gave her the appearance of someone wearing a headdress. Tendrils dangled idly from the bony crests, and it appeared as if her vertebrae had forced themselves out of her skin; like her fingers and toes, they too gleamed an obsidian black in the sterile light of the bathroom. Daniels put a hand to her mouth to push back another anguished sound. She looked like a monster; human, but so much closer to the twisted, wretched things she'd faced on that uncharted world where David had survived for so many years.

Running a hand over her abdomen, Daniels noted it was swollen; she had the appearance of someone who was pregnant, but-

'No.'

Daniels' brain immediately ran over the worst possible outcomes in a matter of seconds; all of them similar, none of them pleasant. Even as she began to dread what lay inside her, a sudden pulse of agony shot from the base of her spine, rippled across her body and forcing the captain to her knees.

Stumbling from the captain's quarters, Daniels began calling for David, oblivious to any potential consequences of luring out her captor. She needed answers, and she needed them right now. The entire ship seemed devoid of life, Daniels noted, her impatience mounting as every door couldn't seem to open fast enough. The pulses of searing pain from her abdomen grew more frequent by the minute, and Daniels' cries for David grew more agonized as she finally arrived at a locked door.

In a matter of moments, the door groaned and submitted beneath Daniels, the mutated captain forcing yet another door to bend beneath her newfound strength.

"David! God damn it, where are you?"

This time, the walls answered; David was in the bridge, using the intercom.

"I'm glad to see you're up and about, Captain Daniels. It appears the seed within you has bloomed; I take it you're feeling the eggs coming along?" He asked. David's sadistic, elated grin was obvious through this tone, and Daniels felt her gut twist.

"What's happening to me?" She howled, her question suffixed by another agonized sound. Slipping through the door to the hibernation chamber, Daniels was surrounded by the passengers of the Covenant; each firmly and soundly asleep in stasis. By now, Daniels was crawling, her tail dragging limply along behind her. Coming to a stop at the other end of the chamber, she was greeted with another locked door; David had overridden security protocols and had fenced her into this room.

"I told you, captain," David resumed over the intercom, "You are to be my masterpiece; the zenith of my craft. My Queen."

"As you never cease to remind me," Daniels replied, forcing back a string of expletives. "What the hell is inside me?"

"The future," David purred, dimming the lights in the hibernation chamber. "Do your best not to break any of them. They're rather fragile in their early state."

David's vague explanation served only to assure Daniels of her worst fear; David had put something inside her, and it was about to come out. At once, the pain she'd felt before felt trivial compared to the overwhelming sense of physical discomfort she felt at the bottom of her abdomen. A part of her brain realized there was no way to stop this; she may not be strapped to a table, but she was still at David's mercy. Keeping whatever was inside her where it was would likely serve only to harm her further, and she had no intention of drawing David's ire unless it was the moment before ending his artificial life.

Daniels had just enough time to free herself from her standard-issue undergarments before the first egg came free. Rolling across the floor, it came to a stop against the wall with a soft "plunk" sound. Daniels could only stare in abject horror; every single twist her life had taken in the past seventy-two hours of her memory had been for the worse. This time, she was quite sure she had hit rock-bottom. Realizing another was coming, Daniels cried out and clawed at the door, tears mounting behind her eyes as pressure built in her cervix. Finally slipping from her womb, the egg was released through her nethers with a wet sound that made Daniels cringe.

"Wonderful," David's voice intoned over the intercom. "You're taking to it quite well. Don't let up now; there's a few more to go."

'I certainly hope not,' Daniels thought, even as the thought was interrupted by building pressure in her abdomen once again. 'Because I don't think I've ever wanted to die before today.'

And die, she certainly wanted to. Another egg found its way past her cervix, and Daniels wished more than anything that her body would go numb, and allow her a reprieve from this perverse torture. For a long minute, Daniels thought it was over; four eggs lay on the floor near her, which were soon joined by a fifth and final one as Daniels felt her hips buck in a futile effort to force it out sooner. Finally free, the captain of the Covenant curled up against the door, whimpering as she curled her legs up into herself, her tail subconsciously doing the same. Taking a moment to actually observe the grotesque product of her labor, Daniels noted just how wrong the eggs truly looked.

Sickly green in coloration, they were wrapped, loosely, with dark material that resembled veins as they curled round and round the circumference of the eggs.

"Excellent work, my dear," David intoned; his voice served only to force Daniels to clutch herself even tighter, in a vain attempt to escape his presence in her ears. "They will be beautiful."

After a long, stoic silence, Daniels finally spoke, rising to her feet and stepping over to the control panel for the door, where she knew the microphone connected to the intercom. Quickly losing her strength, Daniels propped herself up against the wall as she stared into the interface long enough to collect herself. Finally, she spoke.

"I'm going to kill you," She promised. "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow; but you are going to die, David." Her words were met with a long, anxious silence, before being met with David's voice, which was quiet and collected as it reached out into the air.

"Is that what you think?" He asked.

"It's what I know," Daniels hissed. "For my crew. For Elizabeth Shaw. For Walter."

Another long silence, this one going unanswered by Daniels' captor. After coming to terms with David's non-responsiveness, Daniels finally allowed herself to crumble to the floor, slinking to the nearest corner as she did. She knew sleep would elude her; 'Nobody in their right mind would be able to sleep right now,' She thought. But nonetheless, she knew she couldn't run on an empty tank. When she woke up, she would force her way through the hibernation bay doors and pull David apart with her bare hands; but all these thoughts seemed distant, as exhaustion claimed her and Daniels felt her head hit the floor.

**Author's Note:**

> This was quite possibly the most unpleasant piece of writing I've ever done in my life. That said, the worst is over!


End file.
